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This directory contains a number of modifications to UUCP that
are useful for news.  Only the minus.z mod is really crucial,
the others are there primarily to boost performance so as to
cut down on the load on your machine.  There are many other
mods to UUCP kicking around - many bug fixes and security improvements.
Watch net.bugs.uucp for these.  One large mod that is very useful
is the Duke uudir mod, which puts files in SPOOL into subdirectories.
This mod is very much a kludge, and it certainly could be done
better, but until a wonderful version is made available, substantial
performance gains can be attained.  (Since scanning a UNIX directory
is quadratic on the size of the directory, the 5-fold reduction in
directory size from uudir can result in a factor of 25 improvement
in disk utilization.)  uudir is easy to install in any UUCP, but
it contains some assembly language code, which has been written
only for the VAX and PDP-11.  All these changes are transparent to
your UUCP neighbors - you can still talk to UUCP's that don't have
these mods made - you can even exchange news with older systems.
(Batching, with or without the =batch mod, requires at least a 2.10
news system on the other end.)

minus.z.5 
minux.z.v7 
	This mod implements the -z and -n options to uux.  These
	prevent uuxqt from mailing back annoying little messages to
	whoever happened to start up the uucico daemon telling them
	that the rnews command executed OK.  -z says "only send a message
	if the rnews command bombed out", -n says "never send one".
	-z is recommended.  In order for your users not to be bombarded
	with these messages, all your USENET neighbors must install this.
	"5" is for System V and UNIX 5.0, "v7" is for V7 and 4BSD.
cpu.speedup 
	A simple fix to V7 and 4BSD UUCP to keep uicico from eating up
	all the CPU time on your system when receiving files.  Highly
	recommended, especially if all your traffic is at 2400 baud
	or slower.
uux.minus.c 
	A mod to uux.c to support a uux -c option, e.g.
		uux -c yoursys!rnews '<' /usr/spool/news/net/news/123
	which prevents uux from making a separate copy of each article
	in the spool directory for each system.
=batch 
	Code to allow commands such as
	uux -c yoursys!rnews '<' =/usr/lib/news/batch_/usr/spool/batch/yoursys
	so that, once the connection is fired up and ready to transfer the
	file, the command "/usr/lib/news/batch /usr/spool/batch/yoursys"
	will be started up, and its output copied to the other system.
	The advantage here is that batching is possible without keeping
	a full copy of the news on spool waiting for a connection to
	be established.  This can be a big win if the other system is
	down for any length of time.  It does not good without the
	uux.minus.c mod below.  Beware of security issues - they have
	not been carefully addressed here, and this mod opens up some
	potential security holes.  It only allows one command to
	be fired up, and batch should check that the file of names
	is in a safe directory (not /usr/lib/uucp/L.sys or /etc/passwd).
	Ideally batch should be suid, since the command will run as uucp.
DataMuseum.dk

DKUUG/EUUG Conference tapes

⟦ab295b3a8⟧ TextFile

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